Thank God the bombing ordeal in Boston is history. With all the thousands of surveillance cameras and most people carrying a cell phone with the capability of making high-definition videos, it makes our surroundings an open book. The authorities knew almost instantly the identities of the bombers because of one of these surveillance cameras on the Lord & Taylor department store.

This was great for protecting the public from violent acts, but how does it affect our constitutional rights? A free society should not be under continuous surveillance as they are in many countries. Through the last hundred years of creeping progressivism in this country we have gradually given up our rights to privacy.

I am old enough to remember vividly the newsreels going to movies in the late 1930s. I saw Hitler’s storm troopers dragging free German citizens out of their houses and manhandling them like criminals. Recently, I saw SWAT teams do exactly the same thing, but this time it was in Boston, Mass., USA! It was the most appalling thing that I have ever seen since 1939. If we continue to accept this kind of treatment from our elected and non-elected authorities, we deserve what we get —- tyranny! If you have not seen the six-minute YouTube video made by a citizen across the street, please take time to watch, you will be appalled, as I was.

I believe these SWAT teams should be trained to be courteous when handling citizens who were minding their own business inside the homes they believed were safe havens for them and their families. This video will show how they were actually treated: like criminals. They changed the interpretation of our Constitution when they are screaming commands for these citizens come out with their hands up and on their heads and submit to a body search without a warrant. Then the SWAT team filed into the house like storm troopers in Nazi Germany, warrantless.

Please, don’t give me that stuff about “protecting the public.” The only time that should apply is when police are in hot pursuit of a suspect and he runs into a private house or public building. Then I could accept the decision to continue pursuit to protect the lives of citizens. I never would have believed this could happen in this country as long as I would live, no way, but it did.

This country is slowly but surely caving into government progressive handout programs, and the current president is leading the way with his socialist ideology. I could not believe what he said about the radical terrorist: Let’s not jump to conclusions about their motivation.